


distress call

by ripplingtale



Category: Witch's Heart (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, F/M, Hurt/Comfort, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-23
Updated: 2019-01-23
Packaged: 2019-10-15 00:58:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17519156
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ripplingtale/pseuds/ripplingtale
Summary: How many deaths would it need for a hurting soul to pull the flares?





	distress call

**Author's Note:**

> Witch's Heart belongs to IZ (BLUE STAR Entertainment) and I, as a writer, didn't take any material profits from the content here. A character study of Wilardo and Claire, who successfully snagged my heart in the first try.

Her eyes were a bright shade of blue; the most common hues. And yet, and still, in the entire time he was living, dragging himself up and heaving ragged breaths for the endless tomorrows he was forced to face alone, it was the first time Wilardo ever saw the colors that made Claire’s eyes.

It were not quite the sky, not quite the ocean, he wondered whether it mattered, he pondered if he could pinpoint what exactly was the color of Claire’s blue eyes before she shifted her gaze.

“… I-I’m glad you’re alive…!”

Wilardo almost flinched, almost. The words stung his skin, pierced his bones, even more than the wounds Ashe made on his flesh. It hurt, it burned, Wilardo couldn’t decide whichever pained him more, his body that refused to perish, or Claire’s words as it made his mind squabbled in defense.

Claire started to weep, her tears were rain, and her emotions were hurricane. Her hands hovered in front of her chest for a moment, as if she wanted to grasp onto Wilardo. However, she reined her impulse back and gripped onto the edge of her clothes. Her voice trembled, “I’m so glad…!”

She said it as if it was a good thing. As if Wilardo being alive―literally incapable of being anything but _alive_ ―was the nicest thing she could have. She could be glad over the world, over the universe, over Ashe’s defeat, over her survival. But no, she was glad Wilardo was alive.

She was glad Wilardo was alive.

The very thought of it made his guts churned, wailed; it made him feel sick. Wilardo wondered how would it be if he was a mere mortal and Ashe beheaded his heart. Wilardo pondered how would it be if he was a mere mortal and died right there and then. Would Claire cry upon his death as ardently as she did over his immortality?

“Hey, now, stop crying.”

He pocketed his gun, not bothered to wipe off the gunpowder and the splashes of his own blood. He needed no tears, after all. He was here for his own death; his own wish. For a split second, Wilardo almost reached out, beneath the order of his dizzying thoughts. However, his palms were covered with blood, with rust, with the taste of decaying life, and Claire was glad he was alive.

Claire shook her head, trying to gather herself. She wiped her tears with the back of her hands, her eyes were bright, glassed, her tears wouldn’t stop. “I mean, I thought you were dead! R-really…” The last of her sentences were a note above whispers, barely heard as their breaths were louder.

Wilardo would like to think so, too. But the thought of death was as far as turning back the time.

His eyes fell to her arm, where a bullet grazed her skin. The blood had already stopped, it seemed―it’d better be. Wilardo would turn back and slam Ashe’s head to the ground should Claire be still bleeding; after all, alike a longing, a revenge had to be paid back fully.

His silence left a rippling of uneasiness between the two of them. Wilardo watched as Claire glanced at his wounds, and then his face, and then back at his wounds, worry bright on her countenance. She wanted to say something, but Wilardo was so sure it was just something dumb. It was almost funny how he was nearly fluent in the language of Claire Elford just in four days.

A sigh escaped his lips. “First off, let’s bandage up.”

Claire nodded, fast and eager. She grasped Wilardo’s sleeve and dragged him across the empty hallway, obvious to eyes and eyes and eyes _and eyes_ that watched the epilogue unfolding before them. They passed the stairs and the closed bathroom, the locked room belonged to sleeping Noel, the empty room of dying Ashe’s, and finally, Wilardo’s room.

The red door never looked so warm; it was always more to brown, alike decaying flame.

Wilardo knew he had a first aid kit between his belongings. And yet, as he stepped in, he wasn’t so sure. He never needed a first aid kit, he was never wounded enough to have to wind bandages around his limbs. A stab here, a slash there, he would just toss his bloodied clothes aside and wash the blood. He never bothered to treat his wounds, it would be better if he died, anyway.

But now Claire was here, Wilardo placed his first aid kit on the table, assessing his situation. His gaze was drawn to Claire’s arm. Always to Claire’s arm. The red was striking amongst her white and blue, red didn’t suit her as much as it suited Wilardo.

He dug around the box and pulled out a roll of bandages along with a bottle of antiseptic. “Here,” he said, gesturing to the seat beside him as he unrolled the bandages.

Claire’s mouth hung open, she stood her ground. Just like Wilardo, her eyes were drawn to his wounds. However, he had so many, so much, blood trickling onto his cheek and his neck, and he was still so _alive_. “But, aren’t you the one who need treatment first?” she pointed at the wound in his head, where Ashe tried to whack his soul out from his brain.

Wilardo shook his head. “I’ll be fine.”

Claire’s looked at him as if he just grew a second head.

Knowing her, she could stand all day there, therefore, Wilardo let out another sigh. “And I can’t do it myself, anyway,” he begrudgingly added, braiding truths with lies until finally, finally, Claire’s mien brightened just alike the eastern sky as tomorrow peered from the corner of the night.

She happily sat beside Wilardo, and immediately latched onto the wound on his head―which, mayhap, looked more gruesome than the rest. Even more than the holes his own bullet made as Ashe shot him with his own gun―the action was oddly so Claire, and the notion of it made Wilardo tilted his head forward so Claire would have an easier access to his wounds.

Claire hold him as if he was that fragile, that easy to be shattered. She flinched herself when she dabbed the antiseptic around his wounds while Wilardo was absolutely unfazed. It hurt, sure, but he was already so numb, already so used to pain but the life itself, he could only feel his breath, could only feel his heart beating so sure and so loud.

He could only feel how he was so alive

Claire tilted his head up to wrap bandage around his head, their eyes meeting for a split second.

And for a moment, Wilardo could feel a question lodging in his throat, stumbling beneath his tongue. He wanted to die, yes, but she was glad he was alive. Should he tell her about his wish, would Claire tear it apart? Would she wonder why, would she ponder how?

Why was she glad he was alive in the first place? Was it because he saved her from Ashe? Was it because Wilardo helped her broke the Infective’s curse, or was it just a moment of relief because she had a company? He wanted to ask, but there was no room for questions, for masked fear, for crumbling faith. His words died down beneath his lungs as Claire cleaned the blood that trickled down his cheek and jaw, dribbling down to the floor.

The moment she was done, Claire offered her wounded arm. There was nothing more than a graze, the blood was already dried, forming dribbling shapes on her skin that immediately vanished the moment Wilardo brushed his fingers across it. Claire was warm, or perhaps, it was the adrenaline of trying to kill Ashe that made Wilardo felt so cold, so freezing, so out of this world.

They were so different, contrasted. Claire was warm, Wilardo was cold. Claire was blue, Wilardo was red. Claire would never kill, would never curse. She strived in the days, alive, alive, alive. Wilardo lived with fire, with flame. He strived in the nights, dying, dying, dying. They were so different, contrasted; it almost hurt seeing the two of them together.

But it was okay. Their time was short, anyway.

For an immortal like him, people were a mere candle, easily extinguished, easily vanished; one moment, and they left him alone. Something like this, something like _this_ , should he not find the Witch’s Heart, he would never remember it. He never lingered enough in the past to remember the faces, the voices, the words. The only thing that he kept close enough was his anger, his wrath, as he plucked the black flower and held it alike scepter like a fool he was.

“There we go,” Wilardo murmured as he tied the bandages around Claire’s arm.

Claire lifted her arm in such way she admired Wilardo’s handiwork. He did tie the bandages neater than she did, and tighter too. Her eyes, thereafter, found its way back to Wilardo’s face, bright with the same worry she clutched ever since their gazes met one another. “Um, are you okay…?”

The said young man blinked, a soft sigh escaped his lips. “I told you I was, didn’t I?”

His seemingly cold response left Claire unfazed. She wasn’t exactly the brightest person around, but perhaps, that was why Wilardo let her threaded closer than she should be. Claire smiled, stars were her eyes, moon was her voice, universe aligned between her words; she should stop being a sun, Wilardo wondered whether he could turn into ashes. “… Well, I’m glad you didn’t die.”

Claire grasped onto Wilardo’s sleeve the same way she did when she dragged him upstairs, smiles turned into laughs. “I’m really glad you are alive!”

She was glad he was alive.

Eyes fluttered close, Wilardo listened to her soft chuckles, trying to chase away the smell of rust and death that clung to his clothes, trying to forget the scent of lilies and the forest that lingered in the edge of his mind, trying to fill his head with Claire’s laughs and how out of place she was―from this place, from this world, from this entire cruel, cruel universe, from the days Wilardo spent tucked away in his nightmare, dreaming of death.

Should Claire know his wish, would she be glad he was here all the same?

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you for reading through the end!
> 
> This is a character study and an attempt of a lost scene. I'm convinced Wilardo (almost) likes Claire, and the tale would be very different if Claire wasn't the owner of the Witch's Heart; at first, I tried to write the whole "What if," scenes based from Wilardo's action, but I'm afraid my take of Wilardo will turn to be very out of character, hence I scrapped the idea.
> 
> I have so many ideas for this pairing, so perhaps, you will see me around for a while. I accept critics and suggestions wholeheartedly, please don't hesitate to write me one!
> 
> Shout out to Frey, my beta-reader, who lovingly dubbed Wilardo as a sad boi. We stan one (1) angsty boy.
> 
> Again, thank you for reading, I wish you all a good day!  
> \- Az.


End file.
